Mark, Thought provoking post.
A while back I put an inquiry out concerning MoQ and its usefulness. > I see Quality being used to justify human behavior. Any side can use > the metaphysics of Quality to support their argument. This is true, but it shouldn't be. It's an unfortunate consequence of the ambiguous ways people use the term "quality". They take all the good out of quality and make it a synonym for "whatever you prefer" - a purely subjective phenomena. But there is something real and different than "whatever I want" when it comes to the question, "what is good?" Unless I really want whatever is good, then there's no difference. Does that clear the whole thing up? > Quality seems > to be intimately tied to human behavior, since it is our moment to > moment growth through choices based on betterness. Betterness for whom? There's the rub. > I too have > invoked Quality to oppose extreme environmentalism. That is because extreme environmentalism cares about what is good for nature - as in, non-human nature. But non-human nature is about less than half the story. Deep Ecology chastises environmentalism for that reason, and because human values are then subjectively supplied to nature. Deep Ecology insight, and MoQ, is that Nature is good. Nature is the source of value. Nature is the whole cosmos including man. Evolution is a story that includes man in a vast continuum, and to separate out the non-man parts and assume that's nature is a big fallacy of SOM based environmentalism. The best guy for deep studies of nature tho, is Masanobu Fukuoka. Lemme just grab his book in front of me right now... and open it up... Here. This looks good, under the heading How Should Nature Be Perceived. Sounds promising. Seeing Nature as Wholistic "The central truth of natural farming is that nothing need be done to grow crops. I have learned this because non-discriminating knowledge has enabled me to confirm that nature is complete and crops more than capable of growing by themselves. This is not the theoretical hypothesis of a scholar in his study or the wishful thinking of an idler with an aversion to work; it is based on a total, intuitive understanding of the truth about self and nature wrested from the depths of doubt and skepticism in a deeply earnest struggle over the meaning of life. This the source of my insistence that nature not be analyzed." sigh... I get lost in reading Masanobu... I don't wanna quit. Next he illustrates the problem of thinking you know the whole by examining its parts in an analogy of scientists who spend a life time of the study of Mount Fuji, it's rocks and trees. Does the scientist know it best? Masanobu says not, "If a lifetime of study leads to the conclusion that Mt. Fuji consists mostly of rocks and trees, it would have been better not to have climbed it in the first place." > So Quality > does have its uses in the political arena. Is this a true use of Quality > as it is understood? I believe the proper place of quality in the political arena is when we analyze political patterns intellectually. Just like the proper role of religion and philosophy is that philosophy analyze religion. Intellect has a priority over social patterns like politics and religion, and should "be objective". This is probably a source of confusion because, isn't objectivism the problem? yes and no. Objectivism on one level is immoral. You can't hold it as a fundament. But for science, it's the central good. And for philosophy also. The analytic and objective study of social patterns is what we're all about, imnsho. > Over the last 6,000 years of recorded history, one thing stands out for > me. Man was always at war. Dominion seems to be an attribute that > we were endowed with. This is true for only for a small portion of the > population, > but it is those who direct the historical events. Ok, I know what you mean, but you're wrong. There was a pax romana for quite an extended period, and really we are in somewhat a similar situation today, with many little conflicts, but nothing like the WAR we had with Germany, parts 1 and 2. And its concievable that man has evolved beyond that total conflagration because we all know that there can't be no WWIII because of the nuke problem. The urge to dominate is sublimated into other arenas. The Iroquois nation didn't stop competeing with other tribes, they just stopped killing each other. Somebody came up with a good idea, and they listened. Imagine that. Last night, googling around and getting some information about who this Degonidewah guy was, I found an interesting fact. His partner in spreading his message was Hiawatha. Geez my education has been greatly lacking. > MoQ arose from the human mind, so it is not coincidental that its > attributes > are characterized hierarchically. So my question is: Can MoQ be used for > world peace? Can it change man's nature? If Reason is the answer, > who's reason is right? > Well you've got my answer. My ongoing answer which unfolds every day into new answers. I know what you mean about the preponderance of hierarchical domination throughout history and all around everywhere you look. But at the same time, it's not the whole story. There are men who are different. I've met them. I've read them. I've been moved by them to believe that the dominance patterns which have grown so tall will topple some day. Maybe soon. I have hope. > Man's fight against man is here to stay. The question is, how do we use > it for betterness? > sublimate it to games and competition that is creative rather than destructive. How does it really help my cause to put a bullet in the opposition's brain and a bomb in his house? I'd be much better off harmonizing his brain and mine so that we can both live out our individual patterns and feed one another synergistically. duh. > > The quintessential icon of US expansion is the MaC. Those who think > the US is doing the wrong thing overseas see it as a demon. Those who > think the US is doing the right thing see it as a dove. I see it as a > restaurant > where people can go to to eat. > I see it as a dove that is driven by demons, and if its a restaurant, it's one that puts the assembly line profits ahead of the quality of cuisine. I mean, do you think "a well-cooked meal in the best of restaurants" can be compared? Or do you truly believe that in the end, that cookery, like rhetoric, like politics, is just a form of pandering to emotional humans and their subjective desires? Thanks for the dialogue, Mark, I was in a bit of a mood tonight and you fed me. Synergistically yours, J Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
